


Touch

by Venusdoom3



Series: Related Stucky One-Shots [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, But Necessary Anyway, Devotion, I'm Sorry, Identity Issues, Inappropriate Erections, M/M, Memory Loss, Men Holding Each Other, Mind Manipulation, No Sex, POV Steve Rogers, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Past Mind Control, Past Relationship(s), Past Torture, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Touch-Starved, Touching, True Love, shirtless boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venusdoom3/pseuds/Venusdoom3
Summary: "It's been a bad thing for so long. Bein' touched, I mean. It was always either violent or clinical. That's why I been so jumpy about it, but Wanda woke something up I didn’t even know was in there. I need it. I need someone to touch me with kindness. With love."





	

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance that there's no sex, but it had to happen this time. Don't worry. There will always be more sex.

**

(2016)

**

Living with the man who used to be _my Bucky_ has been hell, but I can't hold it against him. He means too much to me.

I spent my first couple of years out of the ice grieving for him, believing him dead and blaming myself for it. Not a night went by that I didn't wake in the small hours with my eyes burning and my pillow wet. I found out he was still alive when he tried to kill me, repeatedly and viciously. But I don't hold him accountable for that. How could I? After all that, he saved my life.

When he disappeared again, I spent the better part of two years searching the globe for him. When I found him, after some heavy and painful drama, he was a worthy ally in a fight I never wanted to have. The fight itself was centered around him, to be honest. But I don't hold that against him, either. Since we were children, I would willingly fight to the death for him.

After his metal arm was blown off and many of my alliances had been shattered, he broke my heart all over again by deciding to go back into cryogenic suspension in Wakanda rather than allowing me to take care of him while we found a way to deprogram him completely. I can't even hold that against him. He didn't trust his own mind. Who could live that way?

T'Challa's state of the art facility was compromised, leaving us no option but to force Bucky out of cryo before we found a solution. Since he returned to his prematurely thawed reality and his new arm, created by T'Challa's top engineers, was attached – this one more white-gold than silver colored and a lot less intimidating, especially without the red star on the shoulder – the pain, both physical and mental, has been so bad some days that he lashes out at me, his lifelong best friend, with whom he has been staying in my living quarters at Stark Tower so I can care for him, not to mention keep an eye on him to ensure the Winter Soldier doesn't reemerge. There's no one else he trusts enough who could also have a hope of physically restraining him in that worst case scenario. Sometimes after Bucky snaps at me, I lie awake at night with my heart twisted in knots and tears in my eyes, telling myself he doesn't mean it.

What hurts most is how he cringes when I get too close to him; how he shrinks away if I forget and reach for him; how he glares mistrustfully at me when I so much as try to hand him the TV remote. Physical contact terrifies him, but I don't blame him, not after decades of torture and pain at the hands of the Hydra bastards who did their best to strip him of his humanity and turn him into nothing more than a weapon. A killing machine. It's no wonder he can't stand to be touched. 

I can't hold any of this against him, because I understand how much pain and turmoil he's in. I know he has no idea where he fits into the world or even his own life, or whatever's left of it, which happens to be me. He remembers some of our previous lives, which were so intertwined from childhood on that they were all but indiscernible, but he hasn't yet remembered the full scope of what we meant – what I hope we still mean – to each other. The way we began one lazy, rainy day in 1937 as inseparable friends, ended it as lovers, and never looked back. Promises made in whispers; vows panted between sweaty sheets; declarations of love murmured against each other's skin. So far, he remembers none of it, but I haven't given up hope.

I know he doesn't mean to hurt me. He hates being constantly jumpy, angry, and withdrawn more than I hate seeing him experience such relentless pain and angst. I see the shame in his eyes whenever he's calm and rational enough to think about what he's said or done. Every time he flinches at my touch, I see the wistfulness flash across his haunted, heavily stubbled, but still achingly beautiful face. After he jumps a foot in the air and glares at me with wariness whenever I make a sudden movement, I see his fleeting expression of regret, no matter how quickly he reconstructs the wall he always hides behind now. I haven't deciphered yet whether that wall is for his protection or mine. 

None of this is really him. It's not _my_ Bucky.

I know he's still in there somewhere, behind his sunken, suspicious eyes, his long hair ever hanging in his face, and his well muscled but still somehow gaunt appearance. I see him sometimes in flashes of recognition or remembrance in his eyes before he retreats inward again, a slave to his programming but even more so to his fear of regression, of losing control... of hurting me more than he believes he already has.

No matter what he snarls at me, no matter how difficult he is to live with, no matter what he says or does, I will continue to love him. The bond we share is too strong for some trying times to break it, and he _will_ get better; he'll come back to himself – and, I hope, to me – in time. 

I will wait for him as long as it takes.

**

"Is this going to work?"

Wanda shoots me a mild glare. "Steve," she hisses, her accent intensifying with annoyance. "I've told you four times already that it should work, but I cannot promise you anything."

"I know." I let out a sigh of frustration. "But it's not going to damage his brain, right?"

"No." She shakes her head. "Absolutely not. I have affected many minds, but I have never left permanent damage."

I peer around the corner to where Bucky sits motionless on the couch, staring out the floor to ceiling window at the sky beyond. Bucky doesn't trust many people, almost always withdrawing to his bedroom when one of our friends comes by, but Wanda is among the few he doesn't mind being around. Using her powers to try to reprogram Bucky's mind, to remove Hydra's brainwashing, was entirely her idea, and she spent weeks exercising her powers and honing her skills with T'Challa and Tony, with whom I had finally, after several months, made peace. That he was willing to help Bucky at all spoke volumes.

Still gazing at Bucky, his hair hanging lank in his face, I sigh. "Good. He's been damaged enough."

"Have some faith in me, Captain." Wanda gives me a knowing smile. For someone so young, she has lifetimes of wisdom in her eyes. "Even if one session isn't enough, I am willing to try two or three times. The effects can be cumulative. Besides, you are no good to us moping around heartsick over your true lo–"

"–best friend," I finish for her, narrowing my eyes. Old habits die hard. I don't know why I can't admit my feelings for Bucky to anyone, even in this day and age when a man loving another man is completely acceptable. Maybe it's because Bucky isn't entirely himself yet. He still hasn't recovered his memories of our relationship, and I am committed to allowing his recall to happen organically. I refuse to force it by planting ideas in his head. I love him with all my heart, but I can only hope he will – and can – eventually reciprocate the way he used to… decades ago… before he was cruelly snatched from me. Before I left him behind. Before I failed him.

Whether I deserve him or not, I want him back – the _real_ Bucky – more than anything in the world.

"Come." Wanda pushes me gently in the direction of the living room. "I will do everything I can."

I hover behind the couch near Bucky's head, clenching my teeth and hoping I don't look as anxious as I am. He slides his eyes toward me as Wanda takes a seat on the coffee table next to him, offering me the weakest twitch of a smile that nonetheless sends my heart soaring. Any glimpse of the Bucky I knew has that effect on me, no matter how innocuous. It's how I know he's still in there.

"Is this gonna hurt?" Bucky asks as Wanda directs him to lie down on the couch with his head resting on a throw pillow, his dark hair fanning out behind his head. He doesn't sound nervous, only curious. Considering everything he's been through, it's no surprise he has a high tolerance for pain.

"I can't promise it won't." Wanda takes a deep breath and pushes her long brown hair out of her enormous green eyes. "I'll try to make it as painless as possible. Are you ready?"

Bucky nods, folding his arms over his chest, and closes his eyes. Wanda nods in return, more to me than to Bucky anyway, and positions her hands near Bucky's head. Watching her work her wonders never fails to impress me – her powers are very different from mine – but I still tense when the undulating red mist issues from the tips of her long, graceful fingers, directed at Bucky's temples. 

Bucky's breath hitches a little as the mist engulfs and then penetrates his skull. His eyes squeezing shut tighter, a pronounced line appears in the center of his forehead. His red lips pull into a grimace, and I barely restrain myself from vaulting the couch and knocking Wanda's hands away. Instead, I bite my lip hard and turn away, glaring out the living room window at the deepening sunset behind the Manhattan skyline. 

A grunt escapes Bucky, and I turn back, unable to leave him even figuratively alone for more than a heartbeat. The fingers of both of his hands – five flesh and bone, five cybernetic metal – grip the couch cushions, his expression reflecting both discomfort and intense concentration.

Wanda pulls back at last, the mist ceasing to expel from her fingertips and the remainder dissipating into the air surrounding Bucky's head. "Buck?" I work hard to keep the worry out of my voice.  As I lean over the back of the couch, it takes all of my willpower not to reach for him. "You okay?"

He makes a faint sound in the back of his throat. "Think so." His voice is weak and rough. "Headache. Real bad."

"I'm sorry, James. That will go away soon." Wanda stands, looking down at Bucky with a sympathetic look on her exotically pretty face. "Let me know tomorrow if anything has changed."

"I will. Thank you." At the door, I engulf her tiny hands in both of mine in a moment of overwhelming gratitude. "If this works…"

I choke up, unable to finish, and Wanda smiles. "I want you to have your Bucky back," she says in a low voice so he won't overhear. "Or at least, I want to turn him in your direction." 

When she's gone, the door bolted behind her, I gather a few items and return to Bucky, kneeling uncertainly on the floor next to him. "Hey." It's barely a murmur, but Bucky flinches at the sound anyway. "I brought you a glass of water. It might help the headache. Drink this, okay?"

Bucky cracks open his eyes, the thinnest slivers of grey-blue appearing between his long, dark lashes. "Thanks," he croaks, rising on his elbows and accepting the glass. While he drinks, I close the blinds, blocking out the brilliant orange and pink light of the setting sun.

Bucky forces his heavy eyelids to open when I take the glass from his hand. I manage a smile, my chest aching with a nearly physical need to fold him into my arms, and drape a cool, damp cloth across his sweat-beaded forehead. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?" I stand, turning to leave the room, but his quiet, cracked voice gives me pause.

"Steve?"

I'm back at his side in an instant. "Yeah?" 

"Stay with me?" Bucky's eyes are closed, but he turns his face toward me, looking pained. "Just till I fall asleep. Please?"

My heart stalls. "Sure." I try my very best to keep my voice light so as not to convey the weight I desperately want to read into the request. "I'll be right here in the chair if you need me." 

_ Please need me, Buck. Need me like I need you. _

We're silent a while before he murmurs, "Thanks for takin' care of me, punk."

"Anything you need, jerk."

_ Because I'm in love with you, still, after almost ninety years. Because after all the times you rescued me from my own stupidity, all the nights you stayed with me while my mom was sick and after she died, all the health scares you nursed me through, it's my turn to take care of you. _

**

A couple hours later, I sit on my bed with my back against the headboard and my sketch pad open in my lap. Patsy Cline softly croons her tales of tragic love from my iPod speaker – which took me an entire evening and Natasha's help to figure out – and I find myself blinking back tears as I sketch. Among my pencil strokes, Bucky's face takes shape, young and idealistic, the way he looked before the war reached our shores. My breath hitches as Bucky's young, open, tragically beautiful face materializes beneath my pencil and Patsy's voice penetrates me to the bone: 

_ Sweet dreams of you _

_ Things I know can't come true _

_ Why can't I forget the past, start loving someone new _

_ Instead of having sweet dreams about you _

"That's real pretty."

My head snaps up, and I drop my pencil. There in my bedroom doorway stands Bucky, looking timid and more than a little awkward. His hair is dripping wet despite the towel he clutches in both hands, his face is clean shaven, and he wears only a pair of loose grey sweat shorts. Heaven help me; he's perfect.

"The song, I mean." He shuffles in place but doesn't move further into my room, and it occurs to me that he's waiting to be invited.

"Oh, yeah." I lay my sketchbook facedown on the bed. "I've been working my way through the decades, but I have my favorites from each that I keep going back to. Come in. Sit."

Bucky nods, one side of his mouth ticking upward in nervous smile, and perches on the edge of my bed with one leg tucked beneath him so he can face me while keeping one foot on the ground. "That one was sad," he says, giving a half-hearted attempt at toweling his hair before tossing the towel over the back of my nearby desk chair. He sweeps his hair into a messy knot at the back of his head, clearly unaware of the effect that has on me – his hair pulled back, his lack of a shirt, his freshly shaven jaw, his mere presence on my bed. It occurs to me that he has never sat on my bed before, at least not this bed, in this apartment. 

I sigh without meaning to. "Yeah. She's good when I feel like depressing myself for a while. How's your head? How do you feel?"

"My head?" He gives it a little shake as if listening for the rattling of loose parts. "It doesn't hurt anymore. It feels... weird. Lighter. I'm not dizzy, just not... bogged down, I guess. Clearer."

"Do you feel like Wanda helped?" 

"It feels... different. _I_ feel different."

Technically, that's an answer, although it doesn't really tell me anything. "Different how? Different better?"

"Just different." His voice trembles almost imperceptibly, and when I look closer, he's quivering physically, too, his arms wrapped around himself.

"Aw, Buck." I almost reach for him but catch myself in time and drop my hands, helpless. "I was really hoping – never mind. You should let her try again. She did say it might take more than one time–"

"It's not that." Bucky grimaces, his shivers wracking the bed so hard I feel them on the other side of the mattress.

"Can I do anything?" I slide toward him, closer but not touching. "Help you? What do you need?"

Sitting as close to him as I am, the quickness of his breaths and the confusion and anxiety in his eyes are obvious. "Can you... will you...?" Bucky closes his eyes as he says, "I need you to touch me. Please."

Unsure I heard him correctly, I open my mouth to ask him to clarify, but before I can make my voice work, he continues. "It's been a bad thing for so long. Bein' touched, I mean. It was always either violent or clinical. That's why I been so jumpy about it, but Wanda woke something up I didn’t even know was in there. I _need_ it. I need someone to touch me with kindness. With _love._ " He opens his eyes, fixing his hypnotizing gaze on me. "Someone who isn't trying to kill me or defend themselves from me or turn me into a monster. Steve," he says, distraught, "I don't trust anyone but you to do this. Can you just... will you hold my hand?"

My heart cracks in two at the anguish on his face as he reaches out for me with his flesh hand, his fingers trembling, and I lift my hand to meet his, lacing our fingers together when his searing hot palm touches mine. I examine his face as he stares in unabashed shock at our enmeshed digits before his eyes return to mine, the smallest whimper dying behind his lips. 

"What?" I ask, breathless and now trembling a little myself. It's been so long since the last time I held Bucky's hand that the contact brings with it a torrent of my own repressed memories. "Is it too much?"

Bucky shakes his head so vehemently a lock of damp hair escapes and drifts over his forehead. "More," he says in a low, raspy voice, sliding his hand to clutch my forearm. I blink at him for a moment, watching a muscle in his jaw tick, before resting my right hand on his left shoulder directly on the seam of scar tissue where flesh meets metal, my thumb stroking the side of his neck. He twitches and presses his glossy red lips together as if in pain, not quite suppressing a soft grunt. "God," he breathes, his hand moving from my forearm to my bicep and gripping tightly. 

"It's okay?" 

"Ah... fuck." Bucky's shivers grew more pronounced, his breath shortening. "It feels... I forgot how..." He moans a little, his eyelashes fluttering. "Steve..."

"Uh-huh?" I can hardly breathe. The look on his face, his tremors, the sounds he's making – all of it combined reminds me of time spent alone together in the distant past, much younger bodies ensconced by scant covers on a narrow, squeaky bed, both learning from and teaching each other as we went. It will do me no good to focus on that – will, in fact, do Bucky a disservice, when he needs my touch to be unselfish – so I grit my teeth and will myself not to get turned on by the flush spreading across his cheekbones.

"More. I need – I can't–" Bucky licks his lips and lunges forward, wrapping his flesh arm tightly around my neck, his metal fingers resting on my ribcage. With his face buried in my hair and his hot breath skating down the side of my neck, it's all I can do to suppress the urge to pull him into my lap, which I was only ever strong enough to do after my science-driven growth spurt during the war. Panting against my skin, Bucky makes a sound not unlike a growl, using his bare foot on the floor to push himself even closer to me. If I was anyone else, he'd have bowled me over by now. "Ungh. Steve," he sighs, tugging the hem of my shirt upward with his metal fingers. "It feels so good. So warm. Can I–" He doesn't finish, as he's too busy guiding me to yank my shirt over my head and wrapping himself around me the way he was before.

With Bucky’s bare chest pressed flush against mine and his hot, quick breath against my ear, it takes a great deal of willpower not to plunge my hands into his hair and drag him into the kiss I’ve dreamed of for longer than I’ll ever admit to anyone. Instead, I start running through the '41 Dodgers roster in my head to suppress my highly inappropriate erection that wants to ruin everything.

"Fuck." His voice is still hoarse, edged with – is it desperation? "It's not – I need–"

"What? Anything you need. I mean it." I don't mean it to come out as fervent as it does, but he doesn't seem to notice. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, quaking alarmingly. "I don't know what I need. It feels so good it hurts, but it's not enough." He makes a frustrated sound, lifting his head, and I'm dismayed at the tears staining his pink cheeks. The look on his face – fretful and utterly lost – is enough to extinguish my unwelcome but rapidly building arousal. 

"Shh." I reach up to brush back the lock of hair hanging in his face. "It's okay. _You're_ okay. Let me try somethin'?"

He nods, breathing fast and heavily, and I manage to yank the covers out from under myself, my sketchbook sliding to the hardwood floor with a thud. Throwing the blankets over both of us, I maneuver us until I'm above Bucky, bracketing his thighs with my knees and leaning with my forearms on either side of his head, covering and containing him as gently but as completely as I know how. A grateful noise slips from his throat, and he wraps his arms tightly around me, clutching my back with both hands and bringing us chest to chest and skin to skin again. I press my face into the crook of his neck and breathe slowly and deeply, hoping to help him regulate his breath before he hyperventilates, and if my lips happen to rest on his skin, who is it hurting? 

"Ohhh. Yeah." The relief in his sigh is almost palpable, and his eyes slip closed, his head falling against the pillow beneath it. 

"There ya go, Buck. That's better. You're okay." Now I know how he must have felt every time he helped me weather an asthma attack, and why he kept talking to me in soothing tones for long minutes afterward – as much to ground himself as to comfort me. "You're doin' great, buddy. You're gonna be fine. This is a huge step forward. I'm so goddamned proud of you, y'know it? You're stronger and braver than a dozen of me put together."

Beneath me, Bucky yawns and then smirks. "Now I know why you always told me to can it."

"How 'bout you can it right now, funny guy?" 

He opens his eyes, momentarily stopping my heart with his long, slow blink and his smile, soft around the edges and achingly familiar. "Thanks, pal. You take such good care of me. I'm sorry I've been such a first class asshole since I thawed out."

"It's not your fault." I've been stubbornly telling him the same thing since before his brief stint in Wakandan cryo. 

He stares up at me, sleepy and earnest and so very beautiful. "Doesn't matter. You deserve better. I'll _be_ better. That's a promise." 

"You always said you can't improve on perfection." That earns a grin, which I return, my chest filling with warmth. "Are you okay if I, uh, dismount, here?"

Bucky cackles, the sound of his easy laughter precious to my ears, but he doesn't release me yet. "Just… do you mind if I stay with you tonight?"

My libido perked up at that, and I shoved it back down. "Of course I don't mind."

"Thanks, Steve. Don't think for a second I don't know how lucky I am to be here with you."

A lump forming in my throat, I smile and climb off him, sitting up while he remains snuggled comfortably under the covers. I don't know how to tell him that  _ I'm  _ the lucky one in the equation without it coming out like a declaration of love -- which it absolutely would be -- so instead, I settle on, "I'm glad you're here, Buck."  


I reach over to switch off the lamp before slipping under the covers again, lying on my back with my hands tucked beneath my head. My brain is so full of thoughts and memories and electric energy, I doubt I'll be able to sleep any time soon, but after a moment, Bucky slides closer, wrapping his arm around my waist and pillowing his head on my bicep. Smiling into the dark, I encircle him with my arm, my hand resting lightly on his shoulder. The warmth of his long, lean body pressed to my side excites me but, at the same time, comforts me, and the slow, even cadence of his breathing as he relinquishes control to sleep lulls me, soothing my buzzing mind and body and eventually pulling me down with him.

**


End file.
